p toward that end is courtesy;
that the second step is courtesy, and the third step--such a fine
and high courtesy (which includes courage) as the President showed
in the Panama tolls controversy. We have--we and the
British--common aims and character. Only a continuous and sincere
courtesy--over periods of strain as well as of calm--is necessary
for as complete an understanding as will be required for the
automatic guidance of the world in peaceful ways.

Now, a difference is come between us--the sort of difference that
handled as between friends would serve only to bind us together
with a sturdier respect. We send a long lawyer's Note, not
discourteous but wholly uncourteous, which is far worse. I am
writing now only of the manner of the Note, not of its matter.
There is not a courteous word, nor a friendly phrase, nor a kindly
turn in it, not an allusion even to an old acquaintance, to say
nothing of an old friendship, not a word of thanks for courtesies
or favours done us, not a hint of sympathy in the difficulties of
the time. There is nothing in its tone to show that it came from an
American to an Englishman: it might have been from a Hottentot to a
Fiji-Islander.

I am almost sure--I'll say quite sure--that this uncourteous manner
is far more important than its endless matter. It has greatly hurt
our friends, the real men of the Kingdom. It has made the masses
angry--which is of far less importance than the severe sorrow that
our discourtesy of manner has brought to our friends--I fear to all
considerate and thoughtful Englishmen.

Let me illustrate: When the Panama tolls controversy arose, Taft
ceased to speak the language of the natural man and lapsed into
lawyer's courthouse zigzagging mutterings. Knox wrote a letter to
the British Government that would have made an enemy of the most
affectionate twin brother--all mere legal twists and turns, as
agreeable as a pocketful of screws. Then various bovine
"international lawyers" wrote books about it. I read them and
became more and more confused the further I went: you always do. It
took me some time to recover from this word-drunk debauch and to
find my own natural intelligence again, the common sense that I was
born with. Then I saw that the whole thing went wrong from the
place